Yeah, it all started with those sweet Hawaiian rolls imported from Hawaii. First it was that big loaf of round bread. Then they started making them into rolls. Now they have hamburger buns. Some stores even make their own brand of them.

I hate chain restaurants. What ever happened to the small Mom & Pop places with good food and atmosphere? Use to travel for work before I retired. We traveled in teams and got sick of places like Red Lobster. Didn’t matter what city you were in it was the same old “stuff” with no variation. We were sick of them! We began to seen out the small roadside diners. Got stuck in one mid-west city where everyplace we went the food was just lousy! Finally ended up in Viet Nam town of the city and finally got good food.

Mom and pop places still exist. They are just often hole-in-the-wall places that aren’t easy to find. When I used to go on business trips to places, I’d ask people who worked at the hotels I’d stay at, or go to a local bar nearby and ask the bartender (if they seemed nice enough). Honestly, even bar food was alright depending on the bar.

There are some areas that are just unlikable though. One road/one horse towns where there is either a single family owned place (if its a tourist trap, it’ll be expensive) or a single chain restaurant with a drive through. Places like Schenectady, for instance. Not a one horse town by any means, but unlikable ;P

I’d just like to take a moment to point something out, because it really hit me in the face with this particular panel for some reason. Take a look back at the original SS pilot strips and compare them to what we’ve got now. Rusche, you and Jess need to step back and take a moment to appreciate the sheer amounts of awesome you’ve accumulated over the course of SS. The artistic development is incredible.

Its sad that these dates have taken something so beloved by Ellie and just through sheer agony of “work” she has come to hate what she loved because of transference of the sheer negativity of those bad dates.

Bad Tired Guy. If I were Sigmund Freud, I’d bash you over the head with a box of cigars and then slap you in the face with whatever Juniper hands me.

I think that Ellie is depressed about this for several reasons. The first is that she is encountering men that are desperate and inept in many ways. They just aren’t interesting (with the possible exception of her first “date”), and there are a lot of them. Much like being a peace officer who mostly encounters criminals, Ellie is getting a taste of that same kind of cynicism. Not that all men are criminals, but rather, in Ellie’s case, she’s seeing nothing but men that don’t interest her and are very damaged.

Worse, even if she DID like any of these guys, she can’t pursue any of it. It’s a one date per guy job, so that leads her to be apathetic.

Further, she can’t help these guys, even if she might want to. She can’t offer advice (because she has to keep up the premise that she is on a real date, not a consultant), and she can’t help in the future because they don’t allow contact after that first date.

It’s not that that guys are shit. It’s that the job is shit. I feel bad for Ellie =\